SoapDope

Lol I remember the Scott Reeves one, it was embarrassingly bad! Like that Nightmare on Elm Street movie that had Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold playing the neighbors, the movie made it sound like Jason became a Muppet. . It's quite weird how the Friday the 13th movies were usually no name and low budget but a number of starts did get their start their too. The one with Reeves also had Kelly Hu in it in an early role for her! The one with Barton had Corey Feldman playing the kid and Crispin Glover in it too. Lar Park was the no name lead in New Blood and next thing you know she's playing Linda Fairgate on Knots Landing looking her real age. 

 

I'm always checking this page whenever I see new posts just to see if I ever miss any old videos so I don't miss them before it's too late. Nice to see those Dickson clips!

Don't forget Kevin Bacon! LOL

Those movies are so notorious of having actors that just gave up or moved on from their careers, besides the ones we mentioned....(also Renee Jones was in the "Jason Lives" one where we were treated to watching Jason rip her pretty head off...LOL) I still appreciate how back then it seemed like most of the actors who later joined a soap like Barton, Reeves, and Jones didn't see the genre as a "step down"  compared how most young actors today thinks being a part of a popular movie franchise means you always have to get "bigger" and "better" roles in primetime/other movies....never giving soaps a thought or the time of day....

Even though the characters were ridiculously aged,Wesley and Richard were popular.I recall Wse claiming he was dropped because he was gay, but was it Richard Guthrie's choice to leave or was he fired? This was all around the Days massacre of 1980 so it is a bit confusing.

 

 

I saw the Bell interview. Conboy is a strange kind of guy. A lot of people like him and a lot of people don't. I think Eric Braeden fought with Conboy in his early days on the show. He was replaced by Wes Kenney when he left to do Capitol. I have seen pics of Conboy in magazines on dates with people like Donna Mills etc.....but I also read/heard that he really was into blonde guys and that's why he would often cast them. If you look at the late 70's/ early 80's cast of Y&R most of the men were blonde Kevin, Jack, Lucas, Paul, Greg, Andy, Cash etc......On Capitol he casted blonde Shea Farrell who later went on to Hotel.

 

I saw some 1965 episodes of Days and they were OK, but a bit slow. Bell said that when he told Corday he would take over, he said he watched the show and saw a lot he did not like and then set about making changes. The show was only give another few weeks to improve and several people thought Bell was crazy to agree to sign on.

I think for Conboy, Donna Mills and his other female dates were merely "beards," to help him conform with societal pressure of the day. Now, it would be less likely to raise eyebrows from him or anyone else to bring a date of the same gender.

 

I watched DAYS from its inception, and have many 1965 eps in my collection, and I cannot say it was bad during the first year, only...uninvolving. Fortunately, Bell was able to work magic on DAYS in 1966 and helped raise the ratings considerably. As I wrote in an earlier message, soap fans way back then did not even know had good we had it. So many of the shows were magnificent in the 1960s and '70s.

 

I would love to see all those classic Days episodes (1966-1976) too along with classic Y&R (1973-1983).

 

That's a crazy thing for Pamela Peters to do. I know they were live on tape then and I bet everyone was pissed they stopped production. It sounds like she hated working with Herrera and whined to Bill Bell to fire him. I do remember him saying his time was miserable on Y&R in an interview. Quinn Redeker said something like that too in a magazine after he went to days in 1979. He said he enjoyed the cast of Y&R at that time when he played Nick Reed (in the late 80's he returned as Rex Sterling), but the backstage goings on was stressful. I think John Conboy was the source of most of it. He and Bill Bell had a power struggle over the show. I remember reading about fights in the control booth and Bell calling from Chicago to rake him out over stuff he saw on the air.

 

 

DAYS was okay during its first season, but it was not really exciting, and did not really catch fire, until William J. bell took over as headwriter. That's why I say I'd like to see all the 1966-76 episodes again, although I certainly would enjoy watching the series from its 1965 debut, even if it did get off to a slow start.

Pam Peters was a young actress at the time, and perhaps, like so many of the original cast of Y&R, she was ((ahem)) restless to leave the show after a few years. I'm not sure when she was on or off contract during her run. When the character's mother, Jennifer Brooks died, Peggy was curiously absent during important scenes. On a Friday episode, Jennifer gathered her daughters together to toell them that she did not have much longer to live. As expected, all four daughters were present and expressed the appropriate grief. When the action picked up again on Monday, Peggy had disappeared. Lorie asked, "Where's Peg?" And Chris replied, "She couldn't take this." We were supposed to believe that Peggy, upon hearing of her mom's impending death, would simply leave the house and her grieving family members behind. It was really awkward, but at the time I figured Peters was either unavailable to work on that day, or had been written out of the script at the last minute due to unknown backstage issues.

 

It's long been said that John Conboy tried to have Bill Bell fired from Y&R, and if that is true, it's shockingly arrogant and aggressive. Any competent producer could have produced the show, but Bill Bell was...Bill Bell. We have since seen what his leaving the series has done to its quality of writing. In other words, Conboy was easily replaceable. Bill Bell, not so much. There's an interview with Bell available on youtube, and when he is asked about his opinion of John Conboy, you can tell that Conboy was not Bell's favorite person.

 

 

I wonder why Pam was gone that long ? Maybe viewers were turned off by another rape so soon and with another Brooks sister. I have read and heard about Ron Becker. How was Dick DeCoit in the role ? Did they try to make Ron sympathetic ? DeCoit has went on to do a lot in his career. He acts and produces shows and has a facebook page. I saw him in a comedy sketch making fun of Archie Manning and recognized him.

 

I say you are right about why Days swept that storyline under the rug. Since they are doing sick storylines now, they might as well revisit and reveal the truth about what happened all those years ago.

 

 

In a 1970s' interview in Rona Barret's Daytimers about his tenure on Y&R, Anthony Herrera said that at one point, Pamela Peters stopped working, looked directly into the camera and announced, "I don't understand this scene!" And then walked off the set. He did not elaborate the point, but that anecdote made me wonder if Peters was something of a diva backstage. William J. Bell later called Herrera into his office, said the storyline between Herrera's and Peters' characters was not working, and then fired the actor. I guess we will never know what went on way back then.

 

Dick DeCoit was pretty good in the role. I wouldn't say the show tried to make his character likable; not only had he raped Peggy, he was abusing his wife Nancy and feeding her pills to keep her unbalanced. The character was quite vile.

 

With Uncle Mickey dead, and Bill, Laura, and Mike all long-gone off the canvas, DAYS will probably never revisit the ancient history shared by the characters, but I would love to be able to raid the vaults and rewatch all the classic Bill Bell and Pat Falken Smith episodes from 1966-76!

 

 

 

I can imagine what Days viewers thought of Bill doing that to Laura. I saw the scene on Days in the 80's where Mike was talking about his real father Bill and explaining he was the product of an "Affair" between Bill and his mother. I don't know if the current writers wanted to wipe away that ugly detail, or if Mike was supposed to be in the dark of what really happened. He said he will always be Mickey's son regardless.  

 

That Chris Brooks rape sounds horrible. I guess Anthony Geary was just meant to play creeps.....LOL. I had heard that Chris was criticized for allowing George Curtis to walk her home.

 

The scene of Lorie crying for that long period before cutting away sounds unusual. I bet the switch boards at CBS lit up when Lorie told Mark it didn't matter if he was her brother. I think I read Bill Bell and Jamie Lyn Bauer got hate mail.

 

No one ever went into specifics with Mike about the night he was conceived, just that he was Bill's son. I can understand why the rape was eventually brushed under the carpet; it would have been very difficult to deal with, for the writers or for any of the characters.

 

On June 16, 1976 (and God only knows why I remember this date), Peggy Brooks, Chris' sister, was raped by Ron Becker. In an interview about this storyline, in which a second Brooks sister was raped within a three-year period, actress Trish Stewart theorized that Bill Bell wanted to revisit the subject because so many viewers had judged Chris harshly for inviting George Curtis home. The way the later story was set up, no one could have accused poor Peggy of "asking for" anything, as she was alone in Chris' apartment when Ron Becker forced himself in and raped her.

 

Unfortunately, during and after the Ron Becker rape trial, something must have happened behind the scenes with Pamela Peters, because Peggy just sort of  disappeared for an extended period of time. It was particularly awkward, I thought, because other characters also stopped referring to her. I scanned the daytime press at the time to understand what was going on, but there were never any reports about the actress' absence.

 

How did they handle the rape onscreen in the late 60's ? Did they just fade out as it began ? I read that one of the most violent shown on daytime back then was in 1973 with the rape of Chris Brooks on Y&R(another Bell written story).

 

Bill Bell talked about how he kept the secret of Mike's paternity going for years, so I assume Pat Falken Smith finished the storyline. Pat wrote with Bill so I wonder if she consulted with him during that time ?

 

The Tommy/Marie story resembles Bell's story of Lorie Brooks falling for her half brother Mark on Y&R 1975-1976.

They did not actually show much of the assault on-screen, when Bill raped Laura. The characters were in a hospital supply closet, if I recall correctly. (It's been 50 years--literally--so I may be hazy on some of the exact details.) Bill advanced towards Laura and she started backing away, protesting...fade to black. We understood what had happened in the next scenes, however, and both characters were horrified about what had just taken place.

 

The first rape story on Y&R, when George Curtis attacked Chris Brooks, was much more explicit and quite upsetting to watch. After unsuccessfully trying to fight him off, we saw a close-up of Chris' face as she was pinned down underneath her rapist, and she weakly cried out, "Daddy!" It made my blood run cold. Idiotic viewers later criticized Chris for "asking for it," because she had been friendly to Curtis and let him come home with her. Thank God society's attitude towards this sort of thing has changed. NO should always means NO, even if you do offer a man something to drink at your apartment. Poor Chris. UGH. The scenes of her in the shower, trying to scrub away the memory of what had happened (Curtis had already sauntered out of her apartment and lit a cigarette), were just as heartbreaking as the scenes of the actual rape.

 

Yes, Pat Falken Smith finished the storyline about Mike's paternity reveal, although Bill Bell was still credited as story consultant at that time. I have an interview with Smith from 1977, in which she refers to working with Bell earlier, and being skeptical that Bell would ever be able to turn the story of a man raping his sister-in-law into a viable love story. I was relieved she agreed with me about that disturbing plot twist, although as we all know, DAYS and Bell managed to pull it off, as did Falken Smith later on with Luke and Laura on GH.

 

Lorie's relationship with Mark on Y&R was handled differently in the end, than Marie's relationship with Tommy. Even after knowing that Mark was her brother, Lorie went to his clinic and begged him to be with her anyway. (Marie Horton did not do that; she flipped out and ran away to become a nun.) Mark refused Lorie's pleas outright, and left her alone to weep hysterically on a bench in the hallway, for what seemed like FOREVER. I'll never forget that scene. Usually, soaps will cut away and fade to a commercial after a few seconds of a character crying, but the camera remained on Lorie as she sat on that bench and sobbed and sobbed...and SOBBED. I think this was the turning point for the audience, who had considered Lorie more of a "bitch" up until then. It was hard not to feel sorry for her and start to see the character in a more sympathetic light. She certainly got her punishment for all the bad deeds she committed against her sister

John Lupton (Tommy) looks like he could be Johnny Carson's little brother. I think someone said Lupton went on his show and they both talked about how they resemble each other. I wonder why Lupton never returned to the show after 1980 ? He didn't pass away till 1993. He did a movie before his death. I read he was on Y&R in 1980.

I wish we could see some episodes from that time, especially when Marie fell in love with her brother without knowing it. I wonder how they handled kissing/romantic stuff etc....up to the reveal ? I remember reading they wanted Tommy to be a Vietnam veteran instead of Korea, but NBC put a stop to it since it was a hot issue at the time.

 

I would also like to see Kitty Horton's storyline and the Bill/Laura/Mickey triangle.

I was fortunate enough to be watching DAYS (and many other soaps) back in the 1960s, and did not even realize how good we as viewers had it, with masters like William J. Bell, Agnes Nixon, Irna Phillips, etc., in top form, spinning enthralling stories to keep us glued to our seats. The Tommy/Marie saga and the Bill/Laura/Mickey triangle could not have been better handled in those days. Tommy and Marie never actually had sex, thank heavens, and their romantic relationship was based more on long gazes and poetic dialogue than physical contact. I was shocked when I saw Bill raping Laura in the hospital, and never dreamed it could turn into a beautiful love story later on, but...it did. (I loathed the idea of a rape victim falling in love with her rapist, just as I did when GH wrote Luke and Laura as a romantic couple.) The Bill/Laura/Mickey drama lasted for YEARS, up until 1976 when Mickey discovered that Mike was Bill's son and not his own. No soap nowadays would dream about extending a story for almost a decade, but because DAYS did just that, the final reveal about Mike's true parentage, and the fall-out with Mickey's nervous breakdown, was enormously powerful. To this day, I consider 1976 to be DAYS' very best year, ever. (Kudos to the great Pat Falken Smith, who was its headwriter at the time.)

Maybe I'm not giving Y&R enough credit, but all of television was changing at the time. It's not like Oakdale was full of Puritans who simply yakked over coffee. Most of what I've read credits Eileen Fulton's Lisa for ATWT's meteoric rise in ratings---and she was a selfish, social climbing bitch. It wasn't by accident that Agnes Nixon created Erica Kane. 

Well, to be fair, it seems like Agnes Nixon took her fair share of swipes at ATWT in the press before this article appeared. What strikes me is that in 1976 (two years before ATWT falls from the number one spot) they're already losing the publicity war. The one thing that always drove me crazy (and this is from the mid-80's on) is that ABC excelled at promoting themselves, while CBS seemed to always be about three steps behind, like deigning to promote their shows was somehow beneath them (or, just simply an unjustifiable expense).

 

I am a little baffled by the author's explanation of the Kim/Jen/Bob resolution. I guess I need to brush up on my history, 'cause I thought Jen died without knowing about it. I thought that was kind of behind Kim's angst during her pacemaker storyline, when Jen came back to comfort her.

I JUST watched that reel yesterday in hopes that the thumbnail might be from ATWT!